


Defying Gravity

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: A scary softie but still, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Apologies, Arguing, Burns, Existential Angst, F/M, Fear, Fear of Death, Firefighters, Forgiveness, Hospitalization, Hugs, Ironhide is a Softie, Just Married, Major Character Injury, Missions Gone Wrong, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Older Brothers, Protectiveness, Rescue Missions, Serious Injuries, Survivor Guilt, Tenderness, Threats, Transformers Spark Bonds, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 11:18:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4874695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“We came as soon as we heard. Are you okay?”<br/>“Fine,” Firestar answered shortly. Of course I’m fine, her internals cried bitterly. I shouldn’t be. It should’ve been me.<em></em></em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>They had only bonded three weeks ago and already working together was proving to have its hazards...</em>
  </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defying Gravity

_It should’ve been me_ , Firestar thought, clenching and unclenching her soot-coated hands between her knees. _I should’ve been the one_.

“Fir’st!”

As soon as she heard the old nickname, Firestar looked up and saw Moonracer speeding toward her. Out of habit she stood, spreading her arms. Moonracer didn’t hesitate to embrace her, despite the filth and synthetic bandaging draped over her frame.

“’Glide and I came as soon as we heard,” she murmured against Firestar’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Firestar answered shortly. _Of course I’m fine_ , her internals cried bitterly. _I shouldn’t be_.

“I think I passed ’Lita in traffic,” Moonracer added. “Lancer and Greenlight called and said they’re coming too.”

“Thank you for your support,” Firestar sighed, but the words sounded hollow and useless. Moonracer clung to her arm and directed her back to her chair, exclaiming that of course they would support her, that this situation had hit home for all of them, but Firestar couldn’t quite focus enough to reply.

 _I should’ve expected this to happen. I should’ve insisted. I should’ve_ …

 _Only three quintuns after our bonding ceremony…Is this it?_ Firestar caught herself with lubricant welling in her optics and pressed her hands against them.

“What is it?” Moonracer asked gently, worriedly.

“I got smoke in my optics,” Firestar muttered miserably.

“Can I do anything? Do you want something?” Moonracer pressed. “I can get you something if you want it.”

 _Can you get me my sparkmate? That’s_ all _I want!_

Powerglide appeared just as Firestar stifled those accusing thoughts. “I hassled the assistants,” he proclaimed solemnly, something more stringent leaking into his tone as he interrupted himself, “they were more like heavyweights; wouldn’t even let me near the windows—but they said he’s got the best: Pacemaker, Diode…even Ratchet insisted on coming.”

“With Ratchet overseeing, I’m sure the surgery will go well,” Elita One said softly as she strode toward them. Firestar nodded tersely in response to the words, taking hold of Elita’s hand as the older femme sat on her other side. Elita allowed the PDA, much to Firestar’s gratitude and wonder.

How did Elita do it? Her sparkmate was the Prime, the most important mech to their uprising, and therefore in constant danger of deactivation. How could her sister cope with that knowledge?

Firestar pondered this as the other femmes arrived, each reacting to the situation in their own way. Lancer paced constantly, fretting in pedal tones and occasionally running at the ‘heavyweight’ assistants to plead with them for an update they couldn’t give. Greenlight brought Firestar a cube of energon and insisted she drink it, continuing to nag until near half of it had been drained.

 _He’s probably having energon cycled through his systems by machines_ , Firestar realized, swallowing unprocessed energon and sending a pleading throb for comfort through their bond. Her sparkmate didn’t respond.

“They’ll have him in stasis, Firestar,” Elita spoke up, no doubt reading the distress in her face and EM field. Firestar nodded once more.

“Of course.” Firestar’s optics flickered upward and she whispered with sudden urgency in her voice, “If he were to…if he—Even if it happened during stasis, would I…” Her own insinuations were making her feel sick.

Elita slipped an arm around her shoulders, directing her to lean across the arm of the chair into the embrace. “Once,” she murmured, “I felt Optimus slip, just for an instant, during an operation. Ratchet was on the scene and brought him back almost immediately. That’s why I trust him with your sparkmate. You should as well.”

An assistant approached then, holding a data board and squinting at the information. “You’re…Lt. Firestar, are you not?” the femme questioned in an unreadable tone, not looking up.

“Yes!” Firestar’s spark was in her throat as she tried to pierce the data board with her optics. How she wished she could act out, destroy anything that allowed the assistant to act so nonchalant. “Is he—”

“In post-op,” was the short cutoff.

Firestar rebooted her vocalizer and stood. She was a few helms taller than the other femme, so it looked like the assistant was glaring at her when she looked up from her board. “I need to see him,” Firestar stated.

“You can’t,” the nurse mirrored her tone. “We need to see if the mesh-grafting holds. He’s in a sterile environment. You—” Her optics flicked over each smoke stain before she finished flatly, “—aren’t qualified.”

“I’m his sparkmate!” Firestar snarled, ignoring the light touch on her arm Elita gave as a warning to calm down. “How is that not qualification?!”

The assistant had the gall to _roll her optics_ —giving Firestar the urge to claw at them—as she started to reply, but she was spared near-certain doom.

“Where is he?!” a sharp voice hollered, echoing down the long hallway to the waiting room. Firestar sobbed out something remote to a laugh as Ironhide stormed into view. Finally, someone with authority!

Ironhide intercepted her wobbly steps toward him, catching her shoulders and guiding her into a near-crushing squeeze. _Chromia must adore him_ , Firestar realized. Despite his usual gruff demeanor and voice, if someone called for it, Ironhide was a mech who could bring comfort to nearly any situation, warm and enveloping, and she could fool herself for a brief series of kliks.

“Where’ve they got ’Ferno?” Ironhide asked again, his drawl much softer against her audial.

“In post-op,” Firestar murmured against his throat. “They won’t let me see him…”

Ironhide’s EM field, wrapped snugly around her, tightened even further and pulsed menace. “Really, now. Well, I’ll be fragged before they tell ya that again.” With that he let her loose and strode straight for the unsuspecting assistant. If she had emotion to spare, Firestar might have felt sorry for her—even more so when Powerglide abruptly leapt up from his seat beside Moonracer and came at her from the other side.

The assistant had the good sense to look nervous at whatever the mechs were threatening her with, so much so that she near scrambled to her communications hub and radioed—oh. Ratchet was now emerging from the backroom, dismissing the assistants guarding the door and then approaching with a reproachful scowl on his face.

“Funny story for you all: I’m sterilizing my tools and thinking, ‘Hm, maybe now I can get a cube of energon since I haven’t refueled in _fifteen joors_.’ That’s when I get a call from Diode, saying that a pair of crazy mechs was threatening one of his assistants. It’s about then that I feel that knot of circuits in my shoulder acting up—the knot reserved for _you_ ,” Ratchet spat caustically, planting his hands on his hips and rooting himself in front of Ironhide.

“Just goes to show he’s biased, if he goes straight to the top for her,” Ironhide pointed out curtly. “What’s this about Firestar not bein’ allowed to see her mate?”

As the rest of the anticipators perked up for his answer, Ratchet wilted just a little. “Just for a while, Hide,” he said in a low voice. “He…had a struggle with the operation. It was hard on his systems, collapsed a vent…I’ve taken him off sedation, but nevertheless, I’m pulling out all the stops to be sure he’ll get through.”

“He’ll pull through better with his fem beside him,” Powerglide protested. “And besides, it’s too late.”

Ratchet blinked a few times and Powerglide backed up, spreading his arms wide over the expanse of the room.

“What, do _you_ see her?”

“But she was just here!” the medic groaned, slumping in dismay.

“Don’t trust your optics, Ratch,” Ironhide advised, hiding a grin. “You haven’t refueled for fifteen joors.”

Firestar, meanwhile, crept closer to the medical berth, sinking down in the chair and staring at the sooty trail her feet left on the floor, wishing she wasn’t squeamish about looking at Inferno in his current condition. When she mustered up the courage, she found it even worse than she’d imagined. He was missing plates of armor, synthetic bandaging taking its place and making him look smaller than usual. Cords leading to different machines snaked along beneath the bandaging and she reached out to lay a shaky hand over the spark monitor.

 _It should have been me_ , she agonized again. _It should_ be _me_. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, remembering how fiercely they’d argued over who would use the precarious equipment to go to the seventh level of the blazing building. The only reason Inferno had won the fight was because he outranked her.

“I love you too much t’argue with you!” he hollered before pressing a hasty kiss goodbye to her cheek and taking off. Firestar remembered her curses of fury as she tore out her ground equipment, feeling inadequate and wishing it was her climbing toward the story just beneath the roof.

That wish had disappeared in a nanoklik, replaced by terror as something malfunctioned, sending the lift and its passenger crashing through the building’s transparent aluminum panels into the flames.

It took three mechs to stop Firestar from rushing to equal peril through the half-collapsed entrance. Two others had found a safer route to their comrade and had dragged him out over their shoulders, shaking so hard that he’d almost jarred himself out of their grip.

Suppressing the flashback, Firestar leaned forward, burying her face in the tarp by Inferno’s left elbow.

“I didn’t love you enough to argue with you. Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love, but I didn’t do anything to stop you. I lost anyway. I should have been the one.” Silence reigned after her anguished words—how long, she didn’t track—before there was an answer: a hand fumbling to caress the top of her helm and a husky voice.

“Well, if that’s love, it comes at much too high a cost.”


End file.
